In a recent article, researchers discussed how a unique hemoglobin-platelet index (HPI) based on anemia and thrombocytopenia may be used to forecast a patient’s prognosis for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma that was not otherwise specified (DLBCL NOS).
In the study, they evaluated the usefulness of HPI in a fresh validation cohort of 94 patients with DLBCL NOS. As a consequence, they were able to affirm that in the validation cohort, HPI was successful in discriminating between progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival. So, using a larger sample size of 160 patients, made up of the derivation cohort (n=66) and a validation cohort (n=94), they further compared the utility of HPI with previously reported prognostic markers such as the National Comprehensive Center Network-International Prognostic Index (NCCN-IPI), Glasgow prognostic score (GPS), and platelet-albumin (PA) score.
As a result, patients with higher HPI scores had noticeably poorer outcomes, and HPI independently predicted the prognosis of DLBCL NOS. In predicting PFS, HPI was more accurate than GPS and nearly as accurate as PA score. Additionally, patients with lymphoma cells that were immunohistochemically stained to be positive for interleukin-6 (IL-6) (75/111 cases) had significantly lower hemoglobin levels and platelet counts than IL-6-negative cases (36/111 cases), suggesting that IL-6 produced by lymphoma cells is responsible for anemia and thrombocytopenia in DLBCL NOS patients.
Reference: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjh.18208
